You know how cities up and close to north pole are allowed to adjust their salat times cause the days are so long.
Someone was telling me that some Toronto mosques adjust their Isha time during summer and match it probably with the closest Islamic city. Is that right?
How up north a city needs to be to be qualified for the adjustment?
Re: Prayer time adjustment in Toronto
abay...give credit to the spiritual leader who voiced this question to begin with? :)
Re: Prayer time adjustment in Toronto
Jee jee, peer-e-kamchor, Muftay aazam, buzrug o bad'tar janaab X2 sahab ne yeah sawaal poocha thaa.
Re: Prayer time adjustment in Toronto
isnt the time acc to the sun?
or am i wrong?
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TLk my answer to this is that it has to be some discussion between scholars to make the determination where the burden on a human is beyond advisable.
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I agree X2. But my thing is that if you and I live on a street with 2 mosques and one decided to adjust the time while the other did not, which one should we go to. would not that be our responsibility then to figure it out
Re: Prayer time adjustment in Toronto
This is one of a number of fiqh rulings on Isha when the phenomenon of "persisting twilight" occurs.
Persisting twilight is when the event of Isha doesn't occur i.e the evening joins on to the dawn without going in to night.
Earlier there were attempts to reclassify when Isha occurs ... there is a difference of opinion;
Shafq-al-ahmar and Shafq-al-abyad (Red Set and White set)
According to measurements Red set occurs when the sun is 15 degrees below the horizon, white set is when the sun is 18 (more accurately 17.6 degrees below)
True isha occurs when the light from the sun cannot be seen. This happens at astronomical twilight which is around 18 degrees declination.
Some people asked is it possible to miss the isha prayer, on the basis that if we don't have a left hand and we do wudu, by not 'washing the left hand' will wudu be counted. This analogy was trumped with the better analogy regarding prayer which is based on the hadith of the dajjal. A time will come when a day will be so long etc etc, the sahabah (RA) asked about the prayers in their concern, the reply given by RasoolAllah (SAW) was you calculate.
So a few main methods of calculation were developed by Muslims scientists of the past. (hundreds of years ago)
Aqrab-al-balad - (nearest city)
nisf-ul-Lail - (half night)
Thulth-ul-lail - (3 split night)
Saba' al-lail - (7 split night)
Forgotten name - (Last observed time)
If there is a city that hits the shadow line of the sun at the same time as a candidate city then for that day (or for those few weeks) that city becomes the reference point. For the al-balad ruling. This is an ineffective method for very high latitudes.
the "lail" methods are where you take the point of sunset and sunrise and split the nights either in half, three or seven. First half, first third or first seventh is the isha threshold, and last half, last third or last seventh is the fajr threshold.
The last recorded time is the method that when the phenomenon was observable the last recorded time is kept every day until persisting twilight ends.
Mistakes in the calculation of Aqrab-al-balad can be made easily.
Other methods that would work fine are percentage/proportioned based on the pattern of prayer times of the nearest city ... which is an unofficial hybrid method.
The time difference of one city from it's maghrib to isha is the 'delta' take this 'delta' and add it to the maghrib of the candidate city and you get a form of calculated 'isha'.
Modernly with graphical tools they are using curve smoothing methods.
Re: Prayer time adjustment in Toronto
psyah, very educational post on how these calculations are made for persistent twilight
the question however was what qualifies a city to be able to do this, if toronto does it, can niagara do it or not? what is the logical tipping point.
You know how cities up and close to north pole are allowed to adjust their salat times cause the days are so long.
Someone was telling me that some Toronto mosques adjust their Isha time during summer and match it probably with the closest Islamic city. Is that right?
How up north a city needs to be to be qualified for the adjustment?
I haven't heard about that being done in Toronto. The most "flexibility" they tend to use in the isha timings is that they calculated based on an earlier timing (I believe 14 degrees instead of 18).
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Very nice info Psyah but I like to hear the answer of X2's question if possible.
TG, I did not know that either but someone mentioned that to me. Maybe what he was trying to say what you said (14 degrees instead of 18) and I misheard him.
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which masjid in toronto does this? i never heard of any.....
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Afhsi, the guy lives in Mississauga and it must be Hanbali or Wahabi mosque I guess as he moved from Saudia and said that it was a common practice over there too.
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interesting....
does this happen in London and Paris as well? Their Isha time is really late as well (I can only imagine how Ramadan will be like...)
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heres a prayer time gaget that i use my self; just add in your location. do tell wether you like it.
http://download.chip.eu/en/PrayerTimes.gadget-2.3.2.0_955068.html
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Peace X2 and TLK
From memory any location which is higher than 48 deg latitude north or lower than 48 deg latitude south is subject to a persisting twilight phenomenon for at least a day during the year. However, due to locations which are not as quite reaching total lapsed nights they actually reach very long nights then a ruling of "mushaqqad" can be applied, which is "difficulty" in those areas where at least one day lapses without true night then the ruling allows them to 'smooth' off nights either side of that day. So effectively even for nights where Isha does exists in the true sense they are too adjusted with a calculation method because the true isha comes in impractically late.
So the point where to draw the line about which location can do it and which cannot so far I understand that if a certain location has at least one night where true isha does not occur then calculation can be used for that until a point where it is no longer needed.
In the UK persisting twilight occurs from late May to Early July but the calculations are set in to action from late April to early August out of mushaqqad reasons. I hope this answers the question.
Re: Prayer time adjustment in Toronto
www.namaz.me is what i use
it allows you to set a Higher Altitude Calculation method.
Re: Prayer time adjustment in Toronto
the one i use gives azan on the time :) whats higher altitude calculation method..